Freeman Wills Crofts is a Golden Age Mystery author whose reputation, or infamy, has long preceded him in my mind. I have managed never to read a book of Crofts – I don't even think I had sampled a short story – through my decades of hungry classic crime consumption. And the reason for this was one of prejudice and stereotype: he is the most humdrum of Humdrum writers, and his puzzles are obsessed with suspect alibis and railway timetables (Crofts worked as a railway engineer) to such an extent that there is no room for characterization or color. Knowing what attracts and repels me within the genre, this formula sounded like the least interesting variant I could imagine, a sort of novel-length algebra lesson where one arrives at Murderer X through mathematical proofs, with all work tediously shown.

Imagine my surprise, then, when I finished reading my first Crofts story, The 12.30 from Croydon – even the title evokes red-penciled timetables and phlegmatic inspection of tickets – only to find that I had experienced a well-paced tale with an admirable amount of intrigue, character psychology, and even pathos. I will be very curious to learn whether this 1934 inverted mystery is an anomaly among Crofts' many other works or if I have breezily underestimated a writer I never really explored. But Croydon, at least, is quite winning in its construction and execution, and while puzzle and whodunit fans may feel cheated to view proceedings from the perspective of the killer, I found that the approach gave the story an immediacy and humanity that I hadn't expected from the author.

Charles Swinburn is an ordinary man under extraordinary pressure: his electric motor manufacturing company is feeling the squeeze of a national recession, the woman he is courting won't commit to marriage without the promise of a secure future, and the good men who serve as his employees rely on the factory for their livelihoods. Appeals to Andrew Crowther, Charles' elderly and ailing uncle, fall on deaf ears, and Andrew refuses to give his nephew an advance on his inheritance, even though not doing so places the family business in jeopardy. (Andrew accuses Charles of improper management, although the reader understands that external economics are to blame.) After other alternatives have been exhausted, Charles starts to consider methods for speeding along his aged uncle's impending demise.

Charles has a sister and brother-in-law, and it is in Peter Morley's presence that Uncle Andrew expires, after taking a fatal pill disguised as an indigestion tablet. Complicating matters for the police, but initially strengthening Charles' alibi, is the fact that death occurs on an aeroplane, as the family (minus Charles) flies across the Channel to Paris to attend to an emergency. For a short time, the reluctant murderer believes his actions to be a success; however, it isn't long before another party puts the pieces together and tries a spot of blackmail, forcing Charles to plan a second and darker murder.

What struck me throughout was how carefully and purposefully Crofts makes his antihero a sympathetic but still amoral character. Charles Swinburn becomes a premeditated killer by degrees, and the author gives him a strong sense of ethics and intelligence, the latter allowing him to rationalize his choice to go against the former. This is the opposite of an uncomplicated sketch of a villain, one who only needs to get the plot started through his scheming, and I appreciate Crofts' attention to detail. Charles tries multiple avenues to raise money to save his company and keep his men employed, and when he first wishes that his old uncle would die sooner rather than later, a strong moral compunction pushes the thought aside.

The obstacle, too, is formidable and unyielding: Charles tries to reason with Andrew and indeed makes persuasive arguments and appeals, but the old man does not relent. The reader goes on much the same journey as the protagonist, which really provides added dimensions to a story that could have been delivered as a routine and emotionless police procedural.

That procedural aspect does come in at the end, when Inspector French – who we are told has just been promoted to Chief-Inspector – recounts the steps taken to build a case for the prosecution away from Peter Morley and right to Charles. This conversation happens over the final two chapters and is told anecdotally over a round of drinks with a reporter, a police captain, and Charles' own defense attorney (after the trial, I should clarify). It's also merely informationally interesting and has none of the dramatic propulsion of the central story; perhaps this isn't a surprise since it is literally a scene of explanation and anticlimax. Crofts keeps his detective very much at the periphery during The 12.30 from Croydon, which works very well here but which I suspect is atypical within the series. Along with the smart sustained build in following Charles Swinburn's steps to murder, the criminal trial is the other dramatic highlight, a wonderfully observed sequence of hope and despair for the accused, with the reader invited to view proceedings from his nerve-frayed perspective.

One other observation: it is clear that Freeman Wills Crofts has an affinity for all things mechanical, and the trans-Atlantic flight, this one seen through the eyes of a 12-year old girl, is described in wondrous and accurate detail. Young Rose Morley experiences the thrill of ascent, the wheels spinning until they no longer touch the ground, then the cabin tilt and the engine noise leveling as the plane's speed allows for a break in the sound barrier. It must have been quite entertaining for readers in 1934, most of whom would likely find travel by air as great and mystifying a novelty as Rose does; Crofts provides the details and makes sure they are right.

I, on the other hand, was wrong. I am quite happy that my prejudices were challenged and that my first Freeman Wills Crofts story was a strong and surprising one. I plan to pick up another Inspector (or Chief-Inspector) French mystery at some point, and I shall see what the mathematic ratio of characterization to timetable analysis will be then.

At first glance, the murders seemed unrelated, even as they both concerned employees of the accounting firm of Slater & Knott. First, the rather antisocial office worker Victor Harleston dies of poison at the breakfast table; and then, after paying a visit to the Torquay home of his business partner, Edwin Knott disappears, along with a tidy sum of cash that he was carrying for deposit. In the former death, Superintendent Hanslet strongly suspects Harleston’s half-brother Philip; in the latter, all signs point to the founder’s temperamental son, Gavin Slater. Along with Junior Station-Inspector Jimmy Waghorn, Hanslet becomes more and more mystified until he consults Dr. Priestley, who is able to see the events from a new and enlightening perspective.

John Rhode’s mysteries are never exactly confounding, but Death at Breakfast offers a number of ancillary puzzles that are specific and intriguing: who was the unknown man outside the house on the morning of Harleston’s murder? How was the victim poisoned with nicotine-laced coffee if a report shows no ingestion of the substance in his stomach? Why did the two partners differ so in their view of the firm’s financial status? Who drew a crude picture of a gun on a wall at a potential crime scene, and why? As Dr. Priestley stories go, this one is lengthy but enjoyable, with a great amount of theorizing from Hanslet and Waghorn and a solution that will likely be as obvious to the seasoned reader of detective stories as it is to the quiet but correct doctor.

Adding to the padding is an interesting (if unnecessary to the plot) and detailed account of a 19th century European nicotine poisoning case. This true-crime anecdote certainly appears to be a source of inspiration to the author here, and he allows Jimmy Waghorn to expound for pages over similarities between the murder he is investigating and the poisoning of Gustave Fougnies by his sister and brother-in-law in 1850. Certainly the Comte and Comtesse de Bocarmé were less imaginative in their approach to murder – overpowering and forcing their victim to swallow the stuff – than Rhode’s resourceful villain in Death at Breakfast.

This was the first Dr. Priestley mystery I experienced as an audiobook, and John Rhode’s unadorned reportage style of storytelling makes for an easy listening experience. Many thanks to Anna M. of Germany, who brought the author’s titles on audiobook to my attention!

There was one aspect that may have been made more prominent because I was listening to a reader performing each character’s dialogue, but it is a common element of some Golden Age Detective fiction, and of Rhode’s books in particular. Superintendent Hanslet assumes the rather utilitarian role that many official police characters perform in these stories: he is very capable of collecting evidence and advancing theories, but his energy with these tasks is directly proportional to the limits of his thinking. (This must be so in order for the brilliant amateur detective to take the reins and deliver the solution before the plodding copper can.) The paradox here is that Rhode paints Hanslet as a man who, upon hearing that feline blood is found at the scene of a mighty fight inside a room, has a mind nimble enough to imagine a tussle with an escaped tiger may have occurred, but is not intuitive enough to think that a person may have used cat’s blood for the purposes of misdirection. It’s a strange tightrope walk between intelligence and ignorance, and I’m not sure that the author keeps his character convincingly in the air at all times.

Still, for classic mystery fans Death at Breakfast has much to recommend. For Cecil John Charles Street, whose devilishly prolific nature meant that this was just one of five novels he published in the year 1936 alone under the John Rhode and Miles Burton pseudonyms, there’s much to admire in his presentation of a straightforward (if lengthy) murder puzzle well told. You can find other online reviews of this title by equally prolific (and perhaps devilish) GAD experts Nick Fuller, Martin Edwards, Aidan, and The Puzzle Doctor.

As both an avid reader and a practicing writer of fiction, I am especially attuned to the spell an author can (and ideally should) cast. When I start to read a novel, I always wait for that moment, hopefully early on, that signals I’m in the hands of a capable storyteller. Whether it is an evocative description of setting, the introduction of an intriguing character, or a surprise in plot or tone that runs counter to expectations, if there is something in those early pages to assure me that the author knows his or her business and that continued reading will likely pay a satisfying return on investment, then I will happily continue the ride. And if it’s not a single element but multiple characteristics that augur well right from the start, then you have likely made a convert of me.

So I was thrilled when the first chapters of my first George Bellairs book, 1949’s The Case of the Famished Parson, showed so much promise in so many literary directions. Bellairs, the pen name of British banker Harold Blundell, presents in this Inspector Littlejohn mystery an atmospheric world peopled with idiosyncratic and marvelously detailed characters right out of the gate. At a shabby coastal hotel, a misanthropic after-hours night-porter combines and drinks up the dregs of the bar patrons’ glasses before begrudgingly cleaning the shoes lined up outside the guest rooms. This unhappy little man, Fennick, is destined to earn the wrath of Mr. Cuhady, a self-important and bellicose businessman whose shoes are discovered dirtier than when they were set out the night before. Cuhady, who is staying at the hotel with a doubtful “Mrs.” Cuhady, is happy to see a police presence there to investigate the Case of the Muddied Shoes – and to arrest the negligent night-porter for good measure – but Inspector Littlejohn is concerned with weightier matters: it seems the body of the malnourished Bishop of Greyle has been found hanging head down on the side of a cliff, his boot wedged into a crevice.

Characterization is excellent, the plot is off to a roaring start (Why is the bishop emaciated? Why was he killed? Who or what brought him outdoors in the middle of the night?), and those early chapters have a wonderful ribbon of dark humour running through them. But, perhaps appropriate for a story revolving around footwear, near the midway point of Famished Parson, the other shoe dropped with a rather disappointing thud. I can’t think of another detective story that started out so strongly only to arrive at such an underwhelming finish. There is no doubt that the engaging and enjoyable first half set my expectations high, and that had Bellairs’ book been merely mediocre throughout, the contrast (and therefore my disappointment) would have been far less pronounced.

Part of the problem, in my opinion, is that much of the potential of plot, character, and place is diluted by development and resolution that feels simultaneously blunt and generic, qualities that the setup neatly avoided. For example, the bishop’s eccentric family is never brought into focus enough or given enough stage time to be contenders as suspects, and the explanations of both the victim’s starved state and the motive for murder are oddly insignificant. In particular, I was frustrated by a very unconvincing monologue confession from the guilty party that runs on for pages; this is the kind of tin-ear philosophizing where the villain recounts every action and rationale to a hapless listener who is to be dispatched post-speech. At one point, this character actually says, “I don’t know why I’m telling you all this.” In that artless moment, I knew narratively why it was happening but still wondered the same thing.

Curiously, the book as a whole is very reminiscent of the Inspector Maigret storylines penned by Georges Simenon, and similarities are found in The Famished Parson’s strengths and weaknesses alike. Inspector Thomas Littlejohn is quite Maigret-like, an intuitive outsider whose profession throws him into a crime-infused environment but who chooses to never fully integrate into that world. Like Simenon, Bellairs seems to be less interested in fair-play narrative structure (i.e., presenting interpretable clues to the reader) than in releasing regimented information (e.g., through witness interviews and predicting human psychology) that gradually brings a sequence of events into focus. In particular, the solution to this Bellairs mystery feels very much a Maigret case: it is rooted not in the fantastical but in the ordinary, and not in the mystical but the mundane. Because the story started out so exceptionally, however, the reveal of a surprisingly common motive ended the tale on an anticlimax.

All that said, I will certainly try another Inspector Littlejohn mystery at some point. If any readers wish to suggest titles they consider strong work from George Bellairs, I welcome their input. Thank you to Agora Books for providing an advance reading copy, and for making so many Bellairs titles available once more in digital editions.

A person would likely be hard pressed to find a more amiable investigation into a triple homicide than the one found in The Essex Murders. The sunny worldview is owed (via the author) to the book's protagonists, mystery fiction writer Ned Hope and his plucky fiancée Nancy Johnson. The duo visit Fen Court, the rather derelict estate that Ned has purchased with an eye towards a domestic future, and what is presumed to be a dead carp submerged in a deep pond turns out to be something even less pleasant: three human bodies, only one of which was visible to start. With joie de vivre – or perhaps more accurately esprit de corps(e) – Nancy and Ned become amateur detectives, roles that the quiet but capable Inspector Brews encourages as they aid the police in clue gathering and alibi exploration.

It turns out that Body Number One belongs to a wealthy man named Habershon, and the other victims are his wards, a young man and woman who are pulled from the pond with one's wrist tied to the other's and a note fragment hinting at suicide pinned to the poor woman's dress. A thermos with sedative-laced coffee and an abandoned car are also part of the tableau, but does the picture form the aftermath of a double-suicide and accident or something more sinister? A neighbor named Hench, an obsequious little man who claims to be an ornithologist but confuses a kestrel with a hen-harrier, becomes a prime suspect, as Constable Hoggett saw him in the vicinity at the time of the murders. But what could his motive be? Ned and Nancy (and, by extension, Inspector Brews) plan to find out.

John George Hazlette Vahey's mysteries and thrillers, published under the name Vernon Loder, were a staple of the Collins Crime Club imprint until the author's death in 1938. (Vahey also wrote using the pseudonym Henrietta Clandon, and some of those titles are available again, reprinted by Dean Street Press.) The Essex Murders has a lot to recommend, even as it falls short of the top tier of mystery fiction from the genre's Golden Age. The premise here is intriguing, and the author pushes his plot along at an engaging if unremarkable pace.

The point-of-view is comfortably limited to the couple's experiences, and this is an effective choice that makes Inspector Brews, when he arrives, a jovial sort-of cypher. Ned and Nancy are left to speculate what Brews may be thinking and how the information they have just uncovered might fit into a larger theory; all of this is great fun and, left partially to the reader to fill in the sketch, the inspector paradoxically becomes a more memorable character than if we had been invited in to share his perspective.

The Essex Murders also leans more towards a discover-as-you-go mystery yarn than a fair-play puzzle story, although Loder mostly provides the clues needed to play armchair detective. For a story about murder in a deep pond, there's a strangely shallow suspect pool, brought about by the fact that there are barely any other supporting characters at all introduced in the course of the investigation. (Aside from those already named, Habershon's housekeeper Mrs. Hoing is the only other onstage/on-page character.) Still, by the final chapter the author manages to deliver a neat variation on the least likely suspect gambit, even with his limited list of dramatis personae.

This is an enjoyable, breezy mystery with an upbeat charm that seems tailor-made for contemporary GAD fiction readers. Published in the U.S. as The Death Pool (New York: William Morrow, 1931), J.F. Norris has also reviewed The Essex Murders on his site Pretty Sinister Books.